Mindshare nabs lion’s share at Media Abby; Madison, Maxus, MudraMax, TME follow

We had said it was a WPP affair, and two WPP agencies – Mindshare and Maxus – scored 15 of the 35 metals given out at the Media Abby 2009. Home-grown players – Madison Media, MudraMax and TME – were not far behind. But Mindshare rocked the evening with 10 metals alone across various categories.

The event did not start on time, which we guess has become a tradition here now, but the wait was well worth it, especially for Mindshare. The agency nabbed two Golds in ‘Best Use of Internet and New Media’ for Matt ‘The Mind Reader’ campaign for Star World and ‘Wimbledon fever in your inbox’ campaign for HSBC.

Next in the winning order were Madison World’s Madison Media, GroupM’s Maxus, and Mudra Group’s MudraMax. Each agency bagged five metals.

Maxus won a Gold in the ‘Best Use of Television’ category for the ‘20 million experiences in 10 seconds’ campaign. MudraMax grabbed a Gold in the ‘Best Use of Special Events and Stunt/Live Advertising’ category for the ‘Scooty Institute’ campaign, while Gold for ‘Best Use of Radio’ went to Madison Media for the ‘Listen to your Heartbeat’ campaign.

TME took the No. 3 spot with four metals to its credit.

Media Direction, RK Swamy, FutureWorks Starcom, Mediaedge:cia, ZenithOptimedia, MediaCom and MPG & Euro RSCG managed one metal each.

Our heartfelt congratulations to all the winners for making the awards night their own. To quote in GoaFest language – The Right Brain Won.

Winners Speak
R Gowthaman, Leader, Mindshare South Asia
We have the advantage of working with some of the best clients and brands in this country. If we do not do the kind of work that we are doing for them, it would not be fair to them. But at the same time, while we have won in various categories – and I am very happy that we have won in digital – it concerns me that we have drawn a blank in radio and OOH. This needs introspection. In all, what we have managed is good, but there is a lot more to do.

Punitha Arumugam, Group CEO, Madison Media
Feels great, feels happy. The team that worked on the winning entries is jubilant and raring to. I only wish we could have won more.

Ajit Varghese, MD, Maxus India
Winning TV is the most coveted as this medium is greatly used, and to do something different and then get unanimous votes for it from all agency heads is difficult. Showcasing ‘pause’ on Live TV like cricket gave it the scale that would otherwise be difficult to imagine. We have won five Abbys this year versus the two last year. This is a huge improvement and gives us the pride that the team is living the creativity vision of Maxus. It has become No. 2 at GoaFest after Mindshare, and that truly reflects the size and product in the market. We won two awards for radio on Vodafone call conference, which not only shows radio as a demonstration medium, but also brought multiple radio stations across city together to sell a brand proposition. I could go on, since to me each win is a unique thought, and the difficulty in getting it implemented makes it ‘Maxus aha’.

Pratap Bose, CEO, Mudra Group
This is a great start for MudraMax and we are delighted. That said, we are going to compete strongly in the other mainline categories and we are going to double the tally next year.

Divya Radhakrishnan, President, TME
We had 13 entries, of which six were nominated and we have won four. Saying that we are elated is an understatement. We have won in Print, TV, Radio and Mixed Media, which are all important categories. In fact, we are the only ones that have won in Mixed Media.